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In Episode 166 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Thomas Ricks about his book \\u201cFirst Principles: What America\'s Founders Learned from the Greeks & Romans.\\u201d The two discuss the influence of Greco-Roman thought and culture on America\\u2019s founding generation, while drawing lessons that can be applied to our democracy today.

First Principles is a timely book, in that we find ourselves grappling today with many of the same questions, concerns, and anxieties that animated and vexed the drafters of the American constitution. It is also a deeply profound one, because it reminds us that America was, is, and always will be an experiment. The constitution was constructed after all, in the midst of the Enlightenment.

\\u201cWhat was most important and really new about the Age of Reason,\\u201d writes the scholar William Goetzmann, \\u201cwas the sublime confidence of the intellectuals and societal leaders in the power of man\\u2019s reason...Human nature, like all other nature, was a constant that yielded to rational inquiry.\\u201d In other words, the enlightenment showed the founding generation that it was possible to use reason and observation to discern the eternal laws of nature and then to use that understanding to aid human progress. To be enlightened was to have an energetic way of examining the world with skepticism and self-confidence and that self-confidence came from the knowledge that the world was knowable, that truths could be discovered, and inquiries made into the nature of things. \\u201cTo be enlightened,\\u201d as the intellectual historian Caroline Winterer put it, \\u201cwas to be filled with hope.\\u201d

It was with this sense of hope and empowerment that America\\u2019s founding generation set about to construct the American constitution and bill of rights. What were their objectives? Who did they look up to? What books did they read? And why the obsession with the ancients? What lessons did they take from the successes and failures of the Greeks and Romans? What did they value in themselves and in others? How did these values inform their construction of the union? And what can we learn from their experience when grappling with our own challenges today, whether we\\u2019re talking about executive power, media censorship, political division, or any of the other issues that animate the spirit of today\\u2019s generations?\\xa0\\xa0

The purpose of this episode is to provide a historical context for the challenges we face today in an effort to understand that they are not altogether new, nor are they insurmountable.\\xa0

You can access the overtime to this episode, as well as the transcript and rundown through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 11/24/2020